It's a long movie. It's a bit over 3.5 hours. And it's directed by Martin Scorsese, so I thought that should make it interesting. But it's not too great. The first half of the movie, roughly an hour and forty minutes, covers Harrison's time with the Beatles. Very little time, maybe a minute or two, is devoted to his childhood. The remainder of the first half of this is a mess. It doesn't play in any particular order, and it feels horribly disjointed. There's no narration, which would be fine, except that a narrator could probably smooth over the transitions between topics. When the interviewer asks questions, they are barely audible. Luckily, there are subtitles on the disc.
The second half is much better. It moves along chronologically, and the story isn't as well-worn as the Beatles one.
I don't think I like Harrison too much. He seems like a pleasant guy, but he simply isn't as talented as the rest of the Beatles. Some of his songs were good, but the quality of his solo career indicated that he actually needed the influence of the others to shape the songs into effective songs.
This documentary also explains why his songs on the White Album aren't mixed right. Piggies sounds fine. But I'm always a little disappointed with Savoy Truffle and Long Long Long. Both of those are really pretty good songs, but the mixes are horrible. Long Long Long is way too quiet. Savoy Truffle is a really good, rocking song, but the mix betrays how strong it is.
To be fair, Harrison is shown to be enthusiastic, and creative, about music. And he's prolific. The problem is that the songs just aren't that great. And all of the Beatles had the same problem. The influence of a collaborator really helps in bringing a song together the right way.
This documentary also ends on exactly the wrong note. It ends with Olivia Harrison describing how George's spirit was visible as it left his body when he died, and how it lit the room.
This just made me sick. He spends most of his life developing his spiritual life. And he's polite about it, not pushy at all. This kind of remark just makes him look like a charlatan. Of course, that's not his fault.
I have no plans on owning this documentary. I still really enjoy the Beatles Anthology documentary, but this is unbalanced, and despite the amount of new material I'm seeing, it's just not that interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment